A brain dump about living and working on the edge of the social web.

6 posts from June 2006

June 27, 2006

Well it's out there. Here and here. Honestly I thought that if I ever got "valleywagged," it would have been about some possible exploits in Bangkok that may or may not have taken place
in the summer of 1988.

Yes it's true. I'm leaving Yahoo! to join social search pioneers Wink. I will be Director of Product Management. After 5 years at the big Y!, all in Yahoo! Shopping, it was time for a change. I did some looking around within Yahoo! over the past year, but there just wasn't the kind of opportunity that Wink is providing.

I'm really looking forward to being in a start-up environment, working fast, taking risks, and learning what's up in that world today... meeting new people, working hard, and sharing my experience with a new team.

Wink is an ideal fit for me. They are leading the way with social search--something that I'm very passionate about-- and have an independent spirit that I admire. That's why I have called them (and others) an "indie search engine." Much like an indie record label, they can capitalize on trends at a faster pace to maximize growth. They can build a following that can take the big boys by surprise.

Anyhoo, I'll write more about all this later. I just want to say that my time here at Yahoo! has been invaluable. I've worked with some of the best people in the business. I love Yahoo! and believe in it as a company. Thanks to Ben for taking a chance on a scruffy, pierced, goateed guy 5 years ago. And thanks to my current Y! Shopping team for helping me with everything I've learned.

June 23, 2006

I went to the Digg launch party for their next version last night. Saw lots of friends and met a bunch of new folks. It was nice to get out.

The new Digg looks great and is a logical next step for them. They're increasing their categories from beyond tech by including World & Business, Entertainment, Video Games, and one or two more (i forget). They also are providing nice category navigation, customization of the navigation, and some awesome visualizations designed by the hipsters at Stamen Design. More on the visualizations... they're terrific eye candy that display real time activity in a very stylized manner. Dropping "Diggs" fall from the sky and stack up on stories to represent the instant popularity of a story in a time-line. Another one shows floating vector circle amoebas that grow as the popularity grows and presents how users are interacting with the story and how each story is connected through Digg critical mass. While it will bear out how useful these really are, one thing is certain, they are engaging and entertaining.

Digg now has 700,000 to 800,000 unique visitors a day... a number that out paces the NY Times. Adding more categories... one can only imagine.

June 20, 2006

Things are a tad goofy in my world right now. I'll elaborate later. All good.

Here are some good things that I've seen lately. I'm sure you have too, but I wanted to at least link to 'em...

ShopWiki Color Search -- Very cool. Joe Laz and I were talking today about it... he was saying that so many folks like to shop by color. This tool pinpoints it. Does Goodwill still categorize their shelves and racks by color? The rainbow gradient of second hand hues was pretty sweet back in the day.

Opera 9 - Totally slick. It sticks it to IE as it is, but the fact that they are having a release event in the emerald city next week seems like an XXL gauntlet being thrown down. The browser (if you can still call it that) will never be the same.

June 11, 2006

I hate to sound cranky, but I need to get this off my chest. So here are the 10 things that are irritating me at the moment.

Tim McCarver and Joe Buck on the Fox Saturday baseball national broadcast. They totally suck and should be banished from the airwaves. They're an embarrassment to the game and the embodiment of jackassery.

That friggin' spinning, barking dog Discover ad that's all over Yahoo. It's almost as bad as pop-up and pop-under ads. We used to have those until Filo put the clamp down.

Our do-nothing society... where are the riots? There should be riots by now. Let's go college kids! Turn off the x-box, throw out the Abecrombie and Fitch catalog and start breaking windows.

Cell phone dependency. Is that call really that important right now? Really?

p-mail... I'll say it again, because I keep seeing it... Do you really have to check your email while you're taking a leak? Really?

The news crawl. Someone needs to have the balls to turn that shit off. CNN, MSNBC? Anyone?

Level 2-1 on Super Mario Bros. for the DS. I can't get around those stupid dancing cacti without the fireballs.

Tim McCarver again... ooh he makes me steamed.

Cranky bloggers! Can't these people just shut their yappers and go on with their lives like everyone else? The arrogance! Like anyone really cares what they think.

June 06, 2006

We launched the Yahoo! Shopping Blog today. Yup! It's funny, I couldn't say anything last week about it as we were going into alpha. The timing of Brian Smith's post was curious; I'm going to have to ask him about who he knows at Yahoo! This is a bit different from the other Yahoo! Search and Marketplace blogs. First, we're using our own tool called the Expert Publishing Tool to create and maintain it. This is the same tool used for the Kevin Sites Hot Zone blog among others. We've also created this for the consumer, not press and analysts.

A blog written for the folks that actually use our service, imagine that!

We have millions of products from thousands of merchants and we felt it was time for us to start talking about them... one a time. We'll be digging up unique and cool stuff, deals, coupons, sales, and features and dishing them out every day.

It's a simple experience right now because we wanted the focus to be the posts. We'll be adding more features and design elements when it makes sense to do so.

A Yahoo! Shopping blog is something that I've wanted to do for over a year now, it just makes sense. We should always embrace new and simple ways to communicate with our customers. It shouldn't be that big of a deal really, it's just a bunch of words and images right? Perhaps, but I still think that making that leap might be difficult for some. I can imagine that folks might think that it exposes them too much, or that it's their place to provide a service and not express ideas or opinions. That may be true but the casual connection and friendly expression that a blog allows you to present will become expected more and more over time. The blogging vernacular and environment will just be the way it is...

Obligatory Introduction

I'm David Beach and this is my blog. I'm a Product Manager, Information Architect, and founder of 12seconds.tv. I work for eBay Mobile. I'm also surviving lung cancer. This site is about my life online and some other junk... enjoy ;)